Bringing Him Home by Penny Brandon

Jared knew that looking for a man to love was pointless because he’d never be able to bring him home. But one chance meeting and one hot night with Kyle had Jared seriously trying to figure out if he really had to live by the rules of someone else’s intolerance.

Torn between wanting Kyle and facing the narrow-mindedness of a small country town, Jared didn’t know what to do. Could Kyle really want Jared enough to deal with the town’s hostility together? By the time Jared got himself ready to talk to Kyle, to ask him, Kyle had left.

Kyle had been looking to find someone to love, looking for a place to call home, and one blazing night spent in Jared’s arms and Kyle knew Jared was just the man he was looking for. But Kyle had a feeling Jared didn’t want to bring Kyle home with him and when he found out why he had no choice but to leave.

It didn’t matter that he wanted Jared, or even that Jared wanted him. The town where Jared lived was the one town Kyle swore he would never set foot in again.

So what did I think?

Jared, a trucker returning home, meets the man of his dreams at a road side service station. A coincidental meeting (yes, it was highly unlikely) that forces Kyle to address his past and Jared to make some decisions about his own future.

This is a story of small town bigotry that had caused both Kyle and Jared to hide their sexuality. For Jared, although accepted by his family, he fears for the impact on his fledgling business. For Kyle, his own parents couldn’t accept who he was.

There were a couple of things that stood out as a little strange (view spoiler)[It sounds like Jared and Kyle grew up in the same area/town – Kyle was raised in the house Jared has bought and Jared’s sister Sally lives locally too so it doesn’t seem like Jared is new to the area – everyone almost knows everyone in a smallish town so why didn’t they know each other? Plus there seemed to be a high number of coincidences (meeting, Jared coming across Kyle’s accident, Kyle owning the land Jared wants to buy etc) (hide spoiler)] but if you parked the slight sense of disbelief it was a quick, easy and enjoyable story.

My main issue was the amount of sex in the story. The sex scenes were well written but there just seemed too many of them, to the point where I was doing a bit of skimming. The story starts with the two men encountering each other in the showers and starts with Jared’s fantasy about Kyle. The first 20% of the book is largely focused on this attraction then some quick sex before both men are thinking about long term relationships. Their feelings were just too quickly engaged without really knowing each other. Plus there seemed way too much trust (in the use of condoms) for two men just meeting. They then have lots of sex very regularly through the rest of the book.

One a very minor point, I also was a little confused as to the setting of this story when I first started reading. The reference to Jared’s “Ranch” had me assuming the US but it terms out it’s country NSW where the term ‘ranch’ would not be used. In this case it would most likely be called a property or a station if it was a huge spread. But it was good to see other Australian terms used correctly such as BBQ.

I am now off to read Blind Passion by the same author – I’ve read lots of good things about it!